MLewyn's blog

The CNU panel on comprehensive plans contained two very different perspectives: one on planning for a not-yet-built-out semirural area, and the other on planning for a big city.

At a panel of developers, someone pointed out that several cities had neighborhood planning boards, and that they were "institutionalized NIMBYism."* I knew that Washington and Atlanta have neighborh

Last night at the plenary session, I listened to Witold Rybczynski's keynote speech, which discussed his new book on real estate development (Last Harvest). A few interesting points:

One issue that came to me after the Girard Avenue trolley tour was: does the trolley matter? Will it really make Brewerytown or Northern Liberties more appealing?

This afternoon, we went on a tour of Girard Avenue, which, for the first time in decades, has trolley rather than bus service.

The LEED-ND rating system contains a credit for "universal accessibility" for the disabled. This morning, Eleanor Smith spoke on this concept, addressing the following issues:

At one of the NextGen small group sessions, I heard a wonderful phrase describing what's going on in Philadelphia and some other cities: "BosTroit"- like Boston downtown (i.e.

Just finished seeing most of the morning presentations at CNU Nextgen (by Russell Preston and Faith Cable).

I walked from South Philly to the Lowes, and the one noise that really grabbed me was: the birds.

A few hours ago, I got off the plane and took the 37 bus to South Philadelphia (where I am visiting a friend for my first couple of days here).